Injunctions.

An injunction is a court order prohibiting a party to litigation to do certain act or directing such to do the particular action.  The prohibiting order is known as restrictive injunction; the order directing particular act is called mandatory injunction.  The Latin word injungere means "to direct, to impose, to command".

The motions for injunctions are typically urgent, ex parte (on without notice to respondent basis) ones.  The party making such motion must prepare motion record containing notice of motion outlining the requested relief, as well as an affidavit sworn by an individual   having personal knowledge of facts in support of the requested injunction. The party making ex parte motion must convince the motion judge that giving a notice to the respondent is not practical under the circumstances, otherwise the motion court may adjourn the hearing of the motion to give the respondent an opportunity to oppose the injunction motion.  The moving party must promptly serve the order on the affected parties and the affected parties normally have an opportunity to make a motion before the court to set the injunction aside.

The injunctions can be informally classified in five different categories:

1. an interim or permanent injunctions;

2. an interlocutory injunctions;

3. an ex parte or on notice injunctions;

4. a Mareva order to freeze the defendants' assets before the final adjudication of legal action;

5. an Anton Pillar order allowing access to the defendants' premises to search or to obtain material evidence.

In granting injunctions, the injunction judge may consider the strength of the moving party's position, balance of convenience and prejudice to the parties affected by the injunction order and other factors.

The Ontario Rules of Civil Procedure and the law requires a moving party to accept an undertaking to compensate the affected party's losses as a result of the injunction.  It means that if the trial judge finds that the injunction was ordered improperly or was not necessary, the moving party has to pay damages to the affected party.

Lawyer's Practice.